Only financially committed members will benefit from N196m aviation bailout — NANTA President

THE President, National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies, (NANTA), Mrs. Susan Akporiaye has declared that only up-to-date financial and registered members with the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) will partake from the N196 million bailout fund from the Federal Government.

The N196 million is part of the N5 billion bailout released to the aviation sector  by the Federal Government to cushion the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the sector.

According to Akporiaye, the criteria introduced by the group for the members to access the N196 million was justified because some members have not been up-to-date with their financial commitments while some were still foot dragging in aligning their operations with the regulator, that is the NCAA.

“Just like every other Associations, we have situations where some people are not up-to-date with their financial commitment, they are members quite alright, but they are not up-to-date with their financial criteria and we understand that 2020 was a difficult year for people to make financial commitment for anything”.

The NANTA President while commending members who met their financial obligations to the Association despite the difficulties of 2020, stressed that their response helped the Association to weather the storm of 2020 and push through in their set agenda.

Akporiaye while emphasizing that partnership with the NCAA would be beneficial to all members and give the body the needed protection to thrive in the business, declared: “Working very closely with the NCAA is going to be beneficial to everybody, every travel agency there, because we need that protection; we need the protection because we have been crying and shouting for this.

“Now the NCAA is saying, come we are ready now to work with you and that’s good. So, that’s why my members actually impressed me in 2020, as bad as it was, a lot of them pushed through in their commitment. So, it is going to be financially up to date members and NCAA registered.”

Still speaking on the Covid-19 pandemic, the NANTA president commended the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Covid-19 for a job well done in its enforcement of measures put in place during this second wave for international passengers.

She stated that the industry was on the path of recovery regardless of the current wave but with these measures, the country would limit an upsurge of positive cases through air travel.

“Yes, we are not quite there yet because of the second wave that is going on now but I am actually very happy. The Covid-19 protocols that Nigeria has put in place is quite impressive. Initially, we probably thought it was too much but now that the second wave has started, we have realized that the method Nigeria put in place for the Covid-19 protocol was actually a very good measure. It is just that what happened initially there was no enforcement, a lot of people were dodging.”

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